Officials are probing how a 51-year-old highway bridge came to collapse in the Italian port city of Genoa yesterday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 16 others as it sent dozens of vehicles tumbling into a heap of concrete and twisted steel.

Fine options may cut Aboriginal jail rates

Fine defaulters in Western Australia will be given the option to work in the community to pay off the penalty, under plans aimed at reducing high indigenous incarceration rates.

The state has the nation's highest proportion of indigenous people in jail, representing 38 per cent of the prison population.

Aboriginal people made up 3.1 per cent of the state's population in 2011, according to census figures.

Under a sentencing legislation amendment bill introduced to parliament this week, courts will be able to impose a fine on low-level offenders but then immediately offer them the option of attending a rehabilitation program or working in the community instead.

"While legislation applies to everyone equally, one of the key aims of this amendment is to reduce the incarceration of Aboriginal people for the non-payment of fines for low level offences which don't warrant imprisonment," Attorney General Michael Mischin said on Thursday.

"These changes are reflective of the state government's commitment to prevent and reduce the number of Aboriginal deaths in custody, as well as the over-representation of Aboriginal people in the justice system."

A particularly tragic case was in August 2014 when 22-year-old Aboriginal woman Ms Dhu, whose first name is not used for cultural reasons, died two days after being locked up at South Hedland Police Station for unpaid fines.

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Chief Justice Wayne Martin said in a recent speech marking 10 years in the role that he considered "the gross over-representation of Aboriginal people to be the biggest single issue which confronts the justice system of this state and, indeed, this country".